hi welcome again to Inga vidcom I'm Adam
today's lesson comes from a few requests
from the Inc vidcom comment section some
people wanted to know about natural
disasters so what I have here is a bit
of a combination of climate vocabulary
and natural events I don't call them
disasters because realistically they're
only disasters to humans to nature they
are just events okay before we begin I
want to make sure we understand the
difference between climate and weather
weather is the occurrence of nature
every day today is sunny
tomorrow's raining today is a little bit
chilly tomorrow's going to be nice and
warm every day's situation is the
weather climate is the pattern over
usually we talk about a year so if a
country or a place has four seasons
spring summer fall winter each season
has its own climate rainy hot humid
whatever the case may be
so we're going to look at climate and
natural events that usually go together
now this last year or the past two or
three years have seen some very crazy
weather or sorry climate events so I'm
going to give you some words to be able
to discuss these amongst yourselves
first we're going to start with flood
and drought okay the H the gh not
pronounced drought flood like going up
so flood is when there's too much water
very heavy rain sometimes it's because
snow melts too quickly in hills or
mountains all the water comes into a low
place or a flat place the earth doesn't
absorb it quickly enough or the sewage
can't take all of it the pipes etc so
all the water rises up above the ground
goes into your houses into the subway
stations everywhere that's a flood a
flood drought is the complete opposite
the drought is what is what happens when
a region or a place doesn't get water
doesn't get any rain for a very long
period of time everything dries out
all the crops all the wheat and rice and
everything dies sometimes this leads to
a famine okay a famine is when there's a
lot of people starving okay so this is a
natural disaster because human beings
and animals are starving because
everything died in the draft there's
nothing to eat okay next we have
earthquake quake
basically means shake an earthquake is
when the earth shakes okay now what
often happens is when there's an
earthquake in the sea or near the sea
there's often a tsunami now this is
actually a Japanese word actually two
Japanese words but they are used so
commonly that we just take them as an
English word now tsunami means harbour
wave not so important for you guys right
now but it's basically a big wave or a
big series of waves that after the
earthquake all the water in the Seas or
the oceans starts moving around
sometimes it moves on to the land and
just destroys everything I think
everybody probably remembers the tsunami
from 2006 or so in Indonesia and that
area very destructive in Japan a couple
of years ago huge tsunamis next and this
is what we're experiencing lately with
climate change global warming whatever
you want to call it heat waves and cold
fronts now if you watch the news The
Weather Channel for example sometimes
you will see it something like this
you'll see lines with semi circles
moving other times you'll see red lines
with triangles moving the blue lines
these are cold fronts means a very cold
mass of air the cold amount of air is
moving the red one same thing but heat a
lot of heat heat waves are very
dangerous because they come very
suddenly it gets very very hot
a lot of people suffer from it a lot of
people die from it same with a cold
front
suddenly the temperature really really
drops minus 20 minus 30 minus 40 and
again very very dangerous you don't want
to be outside when that happens next
we'll talk a little bit about snow now
the Inuit that's the natives of Canada
in the far north they have I think maybe
50 different words for snow you I'm only
going to give you a couple other than
snow
a blizzard is a very heavy snowstorm
okay lots of lots and lots and lots and
lots of snow very white if you live in a
hot country you don't know what this is
but it's actually very beautiful but
very dangerous not fun to drive in not
fun to walk in just fun nice to look at
that's it a squall is like a blizzard
except that it's very sudden very short
and very intense so sometimes a squall
will come in you have a sunshine pretty
day it's cold but you know it's winter
but sunny then suddenly you can't see
anything everything is white just all
snow snow like you can't see past two
feet in front of you and then ten
minutes later half an hour later it's
gone in a sunny again we call this a
snow squall okay I know all of you know
this word storm but do you know the
different types of storms that you can
experience you can have an ice storm an
ice storm is when it seems to be raining
except that it's not raindrops it's
little tiny ice particles they fall on a
tree and become ice they fall everywhere
and become ice so in Toronto that's
where we are today in Toronto this
winter we had an ice storm overnight all
the ice fell in the morning trees
started falling down why because all the
branches were covered in ice and became
so heavy that we crashed on top of cars
on top of people on top of everything
power was out for a long time not much
fun in deserts places like in the Sahara
Desert you have a sandstorm we're
suddenly a big wind carries all the sand
and you can
see anything and it gets in your eyes
and not much fun thunderstorm lots of
thunder lightning storm lots of
lightning hail hail are little pieces of
ice about this big and they drop when
they hit you on the head and low painful
rainstorm dust storm all kinds of storms
always one word ice storm one word
sandstorm one word not to separate words
now students often ask me what is the
difference between a hurricane a typhoon
and a cyclone sometimes tornado and
monsoon hurricane typhoon and cyclone
same idea it's a big circling storm that
comes over land and destroys everything
a hurricane happens in the Atlantic
Ocean and sometimes in the North East
Pacific mostly it's in the Atlantic and
that's why it hits the States and Mexico
all the time
typhoon is in the Northwest Pacific
Ocean it's Japan Philippines all those
countries there a cyclone happens in the
South Pacific and Indian Oceans hitting
India and countries in that area a
tornado a tornado is like a tiny little
hurricane except it's very localized
very small area happens on land these
all happen these all begin in the ocean
this happens on land like a little winds
spins really really fast and just
destroys everything on its way mostly it
happens in the US and the middle of the
United States and a monsoon a monsoon is
like a very very heavy wind and rain
storm usually hits India and Southeast
Asia those areas there then sometimes
these are natural events they're not
necessarily connected to climate but the
climate does help a mudslide sometimes
you see like there's too much rain or
too much deforestation too many trees
have been cut down from a mountain these
trees the roots of these trees hold the
earth together not enough trees or too
much water and half the mountain review
just slides off the mountain it's mud
you know mud like sand and water becomes
mud
the slides off and buries everything
underneath it an avalanche is like a
mudslide except that it's snow in the
mountains you have lots of snow a lot of
snow eventually it gets too thick and
heavy and it just starts falling down
and burying everything underneath it and
then you have a volcanic eruption a
volcano it's like a soda like a little
mountain but very hot inside with magma
lava is another way to say it and then
it blows in Iceland a few years ago a
volcano exploded all the ash covered the
air oh sorry all the ash you couldn't
see anything and flights couldn't take
off from Northern Europe very bad
situation so this is what happens this
is the earth we live on we deal with it
but we also like to talk about it now
and again and now hopefully you have
some vocabulary to use in that
discussion of course you can test
yourself at in vidcom there's a quiz
come by and try it out and we'll see you
again soon
you